The place where I page to when my brain is full up of stuff about the Microsoft platform

Read it and keep

I have to confess to having quite a few real books in my house. Some of these books are reproductions of originals or have really big hi definition pictures in so they don’t work well as e-books. I also find that on occasion technical books work better in print than they do on a small ebook reader. Having said that I only have finite shelf space so I only keep the good (for me) stuff.

When I got my review copy of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation and Configuration Guide written three of my MVP friends ( Aidan Fynn, Damian Flynn and Patrick Lownds), I honestly thought I’ll do a quick post on it then give it away as a prize as I thought I was reasonably competent with this new OS. It turns out I was wrong!

Firstly the book goes deep in to corners that I have only briefly looked at like how virtual (aka software defined) networks work in Hyper-V. This is hard because it is only surfaced in Windows Server 2012 through PowerShell cmdlets. If you want a UI then you’ll need to use System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 sp1.Actually the PowerShell in this book is another reason I like it, as it shows the art of the possible and that may help some of you get over the hurdle of learning it because you can see all the good stuff you can do once you have mastered the basics.

Other examples of good deep technical content are the numerous grey boxes in the text e.g. Linux considerations on NUMA, what’s the right number for simultaneous live migrations, and Backup and Virtual Machine Mobility.

Secondly there’s a lot of good discussion on when to use what, for example

Anti-Virus software for the physical hosts,

typical uses of file shares and SMB3 to host VM’s and what this means for high availability

How to use the new Fibre channel support in Hyper-V

Finally it’s well written. By that I mean it’s been written from the ground up not a bad rehash of an earlier version. Like any good book it takes you on a journey in each section from simple to complex, so initially you’ll what something is like NIC team and learn to do something via the UI and then you’ll get all the nuances and best practices and real world stuff.

So if you want a copy to help you get the most out Windows Server 2012 get your own, your not having mine!